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The attitudes of teachers to education and the ethnic preferences of students
Author(s) -
McDougall Daniel
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1986.tb00744.x
Subject(s) - psychology , ethnic group , friendship , multivariate analysis of variance , developmental psychology , social psychology , mathematics education , machine learning , sociology , anthropology , computer science
Based on their responses to the Survey of Opinions about Education, nine teachers were identified as having tenderminded attitudes and a further 10 as having toughminded attitudes. Their 469 pupils, the subjects, were given a three‐question sociometric questionnaire that measured out‐group choices on friendship and academic tasks. Pupils with language and skin colour differences were identified as minority group members. A two (tenderminded teacher or toughminded teacher) by two (younger children or older children) multivariate analysis of variance was applied to the students' out‐group choices. As predicted, students with tenderminded teachers made significantly more out‐group choices than those with toughminded teachers. However, the interaction between age of student and teacher attitudes was significant at the 0·001 level. Among pupils with tenderminded teachers, younger pupils made more out‐group choices than older pupils, but among students with toughminded teachers, older pupils made more out‐group choices than younger pupils. When interpreting students' ethnic preferences, their age and their teachers' attitudes to education need to be taken into account.